Yeast for a few upcoming batches

[mlakota]

I'm looking for some recommendations on a yeast to use across a few different styles. I can't quite decide which would work best for all of them if there is one. Will be brewing:

Irish Red
English Barleywine OG around 1.120 (something like a King Henry clone)
Imperial Milk Stout OG 1.100
Wee Heavy
Bitter
Dry Stout maybe

Please vote. Thanks.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I'm not sure what you are trying to do here...do you want one yeast pack to do all these brews? You could step up a couple of batches, going from low hops, lighter color, lower gravity to higher hops & grav & darker color, but I don't think one yeast will be ideal for all of these. Are you washing yeast and building starters? Need more info!

You could use Irish Ale for a lower grav red, then a dry stout, then the high grav milk stout. Then another batch with an English yeast for the bitter and use that to build a cake for the barleywine. Then brew a lower grav /shilling beer to build up yeast for the wee heavy. Each beer is its own style that CAN be brewed with nontraditional strains but will be better with the right strain for the style.

 

[mlakota]

I would probably starter the original tube/pack to make 4 or 5 tubes, then build up starters from those to pitch into the batch.

I'd prefer to use one for most of them, even though it might not be ideal for each style. If that's too ambitious let me know.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Ok, that makes sense. I would follow what I posted above...3 strains for 8 brews is pretty good. You could use one yeast, but each style calls for something different from the yeast. Irish ales are dry and clean, Scottish very malt forward, English somewhat estery.

 

[rorypayne]

^^ I agree with him but if you had to choose one I would go with the English personally.

 

[Riot]

I think you could get away with the dry English for all of them, assuming you ran it very bottom end of temp range for the Scottish and Irish ales. Also probably worth a boil down of first runnings in the Scottish to assure some unfermentable sweetness.